Page:Essays in librarianship and bibliography.djvu/300

 280 ground, but will very briefly make a suggestion for book accommodation in a restricted space, which his ingenious contrivances may have prompted, although to find its exact prototype we must go back to the earliest libraries that have ever existed.

These, as we all know, were the libraries of the kings of Babylon and Assyria. Paper and parchment not having been then invented, literature could only be inscribed on some hard substance. Wood or metal might have been used, but the substances employed by the Assyrians seem to have been almost exclusively stone, clay, or terra cotta. An incised stone slab may be an excellent vehicle for a brief record intended to remain fixed in the same place, but for a chronicle or a liturgy, or a set of astronomical observations, or any other of the staple productions of Babylonian or Assyrian literature it is objectionable in two respects—it is profuse of space, and it is not easily portable. The King of Assyria, like the King of Persia of a later date, had doubtless frequent occasion to send for the chronicles of his kingdom to refresh his memory respecting the treason of some Bigthan or Teresh, or the services of some Mordecai. The Assyrian historians or librarians, therefore, devised the inscription of their literature upon cylinders, usually hexagonal prisms, giving six faces instead of one, and possessing the double advantage of easy portability, and of bringing the largest amount of writing possible into the smallest possible space. The question of portability does not concern us